Vegetable Garden

Friday, August 19, 2011

A little too much

We plated a couple more desserts today. Frankly, I think the crepe dishes could do without a few components. For instance, this chocolate crepe dish had everything but the kitchen sink. It's ganache filled chocolate crepes over chocolate sauce, caramelized pears over caramel, ginger cranberry vanilla ice cream with cranberry compote. Given all that, well... might as well top with a a chocolate cigarette! If up to me, I would have left out the chocolate sauce since there's already chocolate ganache in the crepe and left out the cranberry compote. The chocolate crepes tasted very good and the caramelized pears were good complements for the crepes.

These orange crepes were delicious. The crepes were filled with orange pastry cream, also very yummy. Crepes were served with some orange sauce, orange segments, blueberry sorbet on a tuille cup and an orange chip. Again, there are a few too many items on a dish, though not as confusing to the palette as the chocolate crepes above. I am not sure if I could even make a "perfect bite" with a little of each component on a spoon. The crepe is lovely without the blueberry sorbet, but the blueberry sorbet was my favorite item on this dish. It was divine... and just give me a pint of the sorbet I'll be a happy gal.

I love to repurpose food (Vince, my husband will be able to testify to that) because I hate eating leftovers but I also hate to throw out good food. This chocolate macadamia bread pudding was the result of combining 2 leftovers. Level I class had some left over brioche and we (Pastry II) had left over creme anglaise from yesterday's class. Combine the two, throw in a few more items and we have a delicious bread pudding! Drizzle with caramel sauce which were were going make today anyway... that was a good breakfast!

Something savory at last. This is a mushroom spinach jalosie on bechamel sauce. I volunteered to make the bechamel for the entire class. I am glad that most people liked it. The original recipe tasted like chalk so I went around the kitchen looking for ingredients that can make potentially save the sauce. I added white wine, garlic, fresh thyme, nutmeg and shallots. It all came together pretty nicely.

I ate so much today, I feel like a bear that is about to go into hibernation. Oh, for those of you who have been following this blog from the beginning, I still weigh the same as when I started. :o)

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From the Cubicle Jungle to the Sweet Kitchen

I've wanted to attend pastry school for a long time. With an undergraduate degree in finance and a graduate degree in accounting, culinary school just isn't a "natural" progression for my career in corporate finance. Pastry school remained just a dream. When I found out that my job was coming to an end I revisited the idea of pastry school.

On May 5th I finally took the plunge. I signed up to attend the 6-month professional pastry program at the French Culinary Institute. I was thrilled!

Thanks to all my friends and family who patiently listened to my endless "think out loud" sessions as I try to rationalize my decision up to this point.... so... Sweet Kitchen, here I come!